Request for Players -' In the Veiled Region' Campaign Weekend

Over the Easter weekend (30-31 March) Animisity are running the 'In The Veiled Region' campaign. It's open to all players and races and comprises 6 games. Game 1 is a specially comped mission (1000pts, minimum 50% flyers / skimmers /jump infantry / winged), whilst the remaining 5 games are standard 2000pts missions - see full details, below. 

You can still grab your tickets here

You can ignore the imperial/Ork designations now as its open to all races and army lists.

Animosity - In the Veiled Region, March 30th and 31st

- Game 1 Blitzkrieg-

Know No Fear - The first ever review???

Well as my first proper post for Claws and Fists I thought I would review Know No Fear, the latest Horus Heresy book.  I picked this up at the Throne of Skulls Tournament which I didn’t attend but Andy and Mick did.  As I live about 10 minutes walk away I thought I’d go down, cheerlead for a bit (not that they needed it as you can see from the previous posts) and pick up the book.  By 3pm I was about 280 pages in.  I finished it off after the Ice Hockey game that evening (Nottingham Panthers 6 - Coventry Blaze 1).  As possibly one of the first people in the world to finish I thought I would honour that fact by reviewing it.  Just a quick warning this review will contain spoilers so consider yourself fairly warned – this particularly goes out to you Mick….

Still reading? Ok….

First of all this book is an action epic.  It grabbed my attention and did not let go of it.  Not only did it grab my attention but it made me reflect on the Horus Heresy series as a whole now that we are 19 books in and Dan Abnett manages to weave the works of the other Heresy novels into this seamlessly (Samus is here!)

Bit of background first Know No Fear is set in the opening years of the Heresy in particular the pre-emptive attack by the Word Bearers on the largest of the Loyalist Legions the Ultramarines, at Calth.  The Istvaan V massacre has been a fairly recent event but most importantly, due to Horus’ cryptic orders, the XIII Legion and its Primarch Robute Guilliman are unaware of this.  The book itself however covers the best part of 25 years… I’ll leave you to ponder that

The first part of the book is set before the Ultramarines even open fire on the Word Bearers and is split between Space and Planetside through multiple viewpoints and this works well.  You see through Guillimans perspective, a Contemptor-Dreadnought, multiple Ultramarines including a Sergeant marked for censure (Loving the touches on this Mr Abnett), and these show insight into the workings of the XIII Legion and its allies.  It also shows why the Ultramarines are one of, possibly the greatest Legion in the Imperium.  

Theoretical.  

Practical.

Now I will admit although I am a bit of a Space Marine fanboy I’ve never really liked the Ultramarines.  They’ve just always seemed a bit boring to me.  The Ultramarine books by Graham McNeil were great namely because for the first 4 books Uriel Ventris didn’t operate like the traditional view of an Ultramarine and then the mystery about the Newborn and large-scale warfare of the latest one distracted me from the hidebound way of the codex.  When I heard that Dan Abnett was writing Know No Fear, although I really like his work; Gaunts Ghosts, Ravenor, Eisenhorn, Legion, Horus Rising, Brothers of the Snake (think his 40k books are mostly covered there… Where’s my Bequin novels Dan!!!), I was a bit apprehensive because I was a bit disappointed with Prospero Burns.  To me Graham McNeil was the master of the boys in blue and Abnett seemed to go slightly off track with his depiction of the Space Wolves, although again on reflection is does make the Wolves better than Vikings in Space.  If any of those august individuals happen to read this let me say now an unreservedly I now owe you an apology for this apprehension.

I will be making a 2^nd Founding Ultramarines Chapter at some point and using Calth as a reason why.  Most importantly because Abnett made me like Guilliman and that dear reader is impressive... 

When I read this novel it immediately occurred to me not only do I know what happens I know some specifics after it.  The Age of Darkness collection has a book which is set after Calth and this occurred to me before I even brought it.  Guilliman is Holmes-esque in his attention to detail and Dan has made the book so elegant that you can almost see the thoughts whirring behind him (Maybe I’ve been watching too much Sherlock but it does seem like that to me).  It also continues to build up Guilliman as the Emperors true successor and as the architect of the Imperium and not just as the man who wrote the Codex Astartes.  Abnett does this with great aplomb and continues to build on groundwork laid out by Aaron Debenski-Bowden in First Heretic, Aurellian and Savage Weapons and McNeil in Rules of Engagement (Imperium Secundus anyone) while opening up new threads which I hope other Heresy Authors will pick up and run with.  If you’re reading this ADB where have you guys sent Angron then!  I imagine Butchers Nails will tell us…

It was always a curiosity to me how the Word Bearers managed to ambush the Ultramarines as it has been established in the fluff for a long time that they did.  The Ultramarines were supposed to be led by arguably the greatest military mind in the Imperium yet they were ambushed and almost wiped out within 24 hours Guilliman and his Legion manage to turn it around and turn a massacre no-win scenario into a stalemate which allows the Imperium to eventually endure and recover from the wounds received in the Heresy. 

Highlights of particular note for me were as follows and I will try to leave them semi-cryptic:

• Raptorus Rex (Fire Hawks starfort????)
• A unexpected cameo appearance from someone in Legion (The wording of this is in itself is a subtle clue, serious kudos if you pick up on it or correct me if its wrong)
• So he refuses my call for a ceasefire but I tell him to go and screw himself, he calls immediately.
• Samus is here!
• Vacuum? I don’t need a helmet, I’m a mother-funking Primarch, Bastard!
• Oll Persson = Ollanius Pious - smart money?
• Kor Phaeron - Darth Sidious
• Why Ultramarine Veteran Sergeants have red helmets

As a conclusion this novel does now finally put a close on the prequels to the Heresy.  Its been a long journey but now we can get onto the road to the Siege of the Emperors Palace.   I think this has been coming for a while but it really does put Dan Abnett back on top of the pile of Black Library Authors.  A few years ago there was a joke going around that there was going to be a knife fight for the Siege of Terra between Abnett and McNeil in the Warhammer World carpark.  I think ADB can obviously be added into the fray now but I don’t want Dan to write it, I want him to write the aftermath and Guillimans ascendancy.

Next Heresy Book review I imagine will be our favourite most dysfunctional family.....

The Primarchs!

Smokey D

The best and worst of black library - 2010

As I am a bit flu'd up having spent most of the night talking to god on the porcelain telephone and I am so depressed about where Roy is leading Liverpool they I am trying to avoid the tele I thought I would have a look through this years Black Library collection and see what my top 3 and bottom 3 books of the year were.

I should start off by reminding you that I always route for the good guys so its quite funny that all three of the books I have chosen come with Chaos being the main protagonists. ADB makes the top 3 twice as do the Word Bearers.

The first of the top 3 is Dark Creed. The Word Bearers trilogy has been one of the most enjoyable for me. It gives an insight into the chaos legions rather than just the war bands that GW seem to concentrate on now. Dark Creed finds the Word Bearers attacking one of the most important and heavily defended areas of the Galaxy with the help of the Necron device the Nexus arrangement which has the ability to shut down the warp. This book was written in a very grand scale. The battle scenes raged over the whole sector and we get to see multiple armies and it leads very nicely into another series featuring the Despoiler. 9/10 from me.

The second book to make my top 3 was Soul Hunter by ABD. A really enjoyable read very much like Dark creed it gives you a clear view of what is happening in the now defunct traitor legions and an insight into the so far little seen Night Lords legion. The story follows Talos, a Night Lord with his Fathers gift of foresight which may or may not be slowly sending him insane. I loved this book because again it featured the Despoiler, this time we got to hear him speak and it again let you know what continues to drive the Traitor Legions to their acts of cruelty and violence.

The third book in my top three (these are in no particular order) was of course First heretic. I have wrote an in depth review of the book on this blog so I don't really need to go into it in detail bar to say that I loved it.

So the worst?

The start of the year as already mentioned on this blog found me in hospital and reading Rynn's world a book I found very hard to get into. I didn't like the style nor did I enjoy the story line all that. I like to think of the space marines as super humans that can do what no man can do I do not like to think of them as super humans who can do the completely impossible (for example bitch slapping an Avatar, Calgar Style) and that's what this book seemed to be. I enjoy Black Library books in which there is still a semblance of realism tucked away in there. Not a fan of this one at all.

The second has to be Prospero Burns. Again like First Heretic I have talked about it at length on here. Not a Space Wolf book for me at all. Had I not been a Space Wolf player I may have enjoyed it more and I can understand those who do love it but I found it incredibly tedious and a chore to get through. Keep your Skalds and give me more blood.

Finally the worst of the year was the final book of the Blood Angels series Black Tide. One of the few Black library books I have picked up and not finished. It could have been really good. I love the back story to Bile, but this was just awful. It follows Rafen now wracked with guilt over his brothers death trying to destroy the rogue apothecary and stop his evil schemes. I don't often use Internet terms but this one had epic fail written all over it. A non gaming science fiction fan told me that he had been put off all the BL books after reading this one and I can understand why. Its a real shame because I like James Swallow, Flight of the Eisenstein was a really good book and I enjoyed the Garro audio book but this just didn't get out the starting blocks.

I will continue to look forward to Black Library delivering some great stories and this year I will be attending Black Library live in March come hell or high water.

Prospero Burns - The Review

So I did what I haven't done in a long while and read a book in a day (my missus claims that this is taking being a geek to a whole new level).

I should start off with this line, unfortunately this is not going to be a wholly favourable review.

Perhaps because of the anticipation I had false hopes although I don't think this is the case. Unfortunately the book is just slow. I don't think I have noticed before but looking back at Abnett's other work his style seems to be to introduce characters without giving any back story for example Horus Rising starting off with the line 'I was there when Horus killed the Emperor.' No back story just straight into it. I haven't read any of his guard books so if its not like this in those will you let me know? Prospero Burns uses the same mechanic but to not nearly as good effect, it introduces characters and you sit there for chapters thinking 'WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?'. I don't know about you but I struggle to remember the names of Horus Heresy characters when I don't know who they are or care for them. That happened a lot in this book and this really gets to the crux of why I didn't enjoy this book. Its a book about Space Wolves right? Except that Space Wolves aren't really introduced into the book until page 149.

A Space Wolves book where the main character isn't a Space Wolf? Crazy right? Instead the main character is a 'Coservator' which is basically a historian chronicling the stories of the Space Wolves or 'The Rout' as they call themselves. He follows them through the latter parts of the Crusade telling us how they fight in strange leather masks (what's going on there) and recording the heroic deaths without ever revealing anything significant. By the time we get to Nikea the book is almost over and it leaves very little time for the meat of the matter. I seem to remember that Abnett said before he wrote it that he didn't actually like Space Wolves I wonder if that is why he avoids Astartes so much. 'The reason for this - and I really do understand that the following revelation is such a heretical statement that Eisenhorn might have to come and shoot me through the lungs - is that I don’t really like Space Wolves.'

Another major gripe was that it very much concentrated on one company. There was no indication of the scale of the legion;. We saw one of the original Space Wolves from Terra but that was it and he didn't get that much face time.

Was it all bad? We no I actually thought the battle of Prospero was better written than in A Thousand sons. Abnett has a better sense of the grand battles but as said that was spoiled because there just wasn't enough time for it. I said in my review of First Heretic that when I read a Horus Heresy novel I want to have a story that I already know fleshed out with details. This failed on that and whats worse it failed to entertain me.

Please don't think I am some sort of hater for Black Library or the Horus Heresy Series. I love both, Black Library is what got me into 40k. If you compare this with one of the Horus Heresy books I love and seeing as it was most recent I will use First Heretic it just doesn't have the same gumption. First Heretic made you care for the characters even the villainous ones, it gave you a constant flow of action and it gave you massive revelations. The more I think about it the more I compare this to Abnett's book Legion. I know a lot of people enjoyed that book, I know its many peoples favourite. I however did not, it like this was too slow and too subtle. When I read a Horus Heresy book I want a David Haye knock out punch not a Stephen Hawking, here's something to think about. Also like Legion I believe that this book will be remembered for the revelations rather than the actual storyline especially the first 300 pages which were completely forgettable.

I give Prospero Burns a disappointing 4/10 (I would give A Thousand Son's 5/10)
Just not enough Wolfy action to ever be a great Space Wolves novel and certainly not enough of The Wolf King, I can't remember a Horus Heresy book (Bar Legion perhaps) that has featured a Primarch but shown him so little. My advice to you is skip to page 300 and read from there. Pretend that there was nothing else and this really is a book about Space Wolves rather than the book of intrigue that is masquerading as a novel of the Wolves of Russ or else forget it exists and wait the 170 days until Battle for the fang comes out and pray to the All Father that that is better.

Prospero Burns

Just a little note to say that I have just picked up my copy from Warhammer world. Eagerly awaiting this, I was disappointed with A thousand sons but I loved First Heretic, hopefully I will get the review done before Christmas Day so watch this space.

There are no Wolves on Fenris

I'll start off by saying that while I will attempt to not make this full of Spoilers to A Thousand Sons I cannot promise that there will be none so if you are that bothered you might not want to read this.
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OK then, 'There are no wolves on Fenris 'a phrase uttered by that despicable Sorcerer Magnus but what does it mean? It has certainly caused some debate on the internet community and Mr McNeill if you happen to read this and want to put and end to the debate that would be great but until then I thought I'd share my feelings as a proud Wolf Player.

I have certainly seen some creative interpretations of the phrase the main one being that the wolves are in fact the first human settlers who evolved to survive Long Night into the creatures that our kinsman on Fenris now accept to be wolves however I really don't like this explanation. ITs believed that the canis helix is a part of that but surely that can't be true. The Canis Helix is part of the geneseed of the glorius Primarch Russ so how can they have used something that had been around before the Emperor ever came to power?

Another theory (and a shocking one at that) is that Fenrisian Wolves are actually creatures of the Warp. I personally think this is an attempt by our enemies (probably the Dark Angels) to ruin our good name especially in the light of their heresy.

So whats my take on this? Personally I think that the Fenrisian wolves are a native species to Fenris. When the first colonists arrived on Fenris they saw lupine like animals and named them Wolves. I think that that Evil Scorcerer found a certain irony that such a stoic group as we would use Xenos like this.

Certainly interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.

The Emperor's "Tactical Retreat"

Andy and I had a go at the new Fantasy Flight board game Horus Heresy last night and I have to say it was brilliant. It took us about 4 hours to play but that was mainly because we were looking something up in the rule book every five minutes. The Activation Markers (which stop you just using the same units over and over again) and the Iteration Track (which changes the 40K dynamic of your turn, my turn) makes for a really tactical game.

Nearing the Spaceport Victory part of the game Andy had control of all four of the Spaceports:


Only a daring attack by the Blood Angels managed to capture the Lion's Gate Spaceport and kept the game going.

Eventually, with the Imperial's reserves arriving soon from the warp, Horus managed to trap The Emperor in the Factorum in the south. However, using some Secret Tunnels, he made good his escape and so the Space Wolves and Dark Angels arrived signalling an Imperial victory.

In all I managed to kill 3 of the Traitor's Primarchs for the loss of just the Khan so it was as much a moral victory as it was a hold out. It was quite a tight game all the way through and I'm looking forward to playing as the bad guys next time. I'm not sure how that will go as I'll probably be too aggressive with them but maybe that's what's needed as you can't hang around once the clock is ticking.

The Good Guys

Following on from yesterday, here are the Imperial forces:




No Thunderhawks and only three Titans but you do get Custodes so it's all good.

The Enemy Arrayed

I received the Horus Heresy board game on Thursday and I must say I'm very impressed with the contents of the box. The rules look a bit more confusing than Warhammer 40,000 but hopefully it'll be reasonably straightforward once we start playing a couple of games. Anyway, I've managed to spend a bit of time putting together the Choas forces:




Mmm, four Titans...